Some 16 Russian battleships are now deployed in the Mediterranean waters are in fact a deterrence concerning any probable adventurism by the US against Syria. ● According to Al Madayen, the US has deployed 3 navy fleet, including Haman which was salted to return to its command center was ordered to stay. ● A Royal Navy rapid-reaction force including aircraft carrier HMS Illustrious and two frigates will sail for the Mediterranean, on the other side of the developments in the region. ● A group of warships from Russia’s Pacific Fleet entered the Mediterranean waters for the first time in decades. The task force has successfully passed through the Suez Channel and entered the Mediterranean. It is the first time in decades that Pacific Fleet warships enter this region, according to Capt. First Rank Roman Martov.

Iran French Radio: Les navires de guerre russes appareillent vers Tartous
Al Mukawama: La Marina y el Ejército de Rusia movilizados a favor de Siria

● “Warplanes and military transporters” have reportedly been moved to Britain’s Akrotiri airbase in Cyprus in the latest sign of the allied forces’ preparations for a military strike on Syria amid bellicose rhetoric against the Syrian government.
● Two commercial pilots who regularly fly from Larnaca, Cyprus, claim to have spotted C-130 transport planes from their own aircraft and small formations of possibly European fighter jets from their radar screens, according to the Guardian.
● Akrotiri airbase is less than 100 miles from Syria, making it a likely hub for a bombing campaign. Residents near the airfield confirmed to the Guardian that “activity there has been much higher than normal over the past 48 hours.”

Voz Iz Neias: Senior Israeli Team In DC As U.S. Prepares For Possible Syria Attack
Xinhuanet.com: Syria slams Western allegations amid looming military intervention
The Independent: Russia’s warning falls on deaf ears as Britain and US prepare to bomb
Reuters: Russia warns U.S. not to repeat in Syria past mistakes in region
Russia Today: Hysteria around chemical attack suits those who want military intervention in Syria - Lavrov
PressTV: West must abide by international law on Syria: Russia
Google/AFP: US threatens Syria over 'obscene' chemical strike
StormCloudsGathering: Leaked Documents: U.S. Framed Syria in Chemical Weapons Attack - Video
Jerome R. Corsi: Evidence: Syria gas attack work of U.S. allies - VIDEOS
Ynet News: Skirting the ground: How the West will attack Syria [for Israel]
The Excavator: U.N. Official And Syrian Kurdish Leader: Assad Did Not Use Chemical Weapons

[January 28, 2013] - Documents allegedly "hacked" belonging to UK-based defense contractor Britam (official website here) appear to show the company considering an offer from Qatar to use Libyan chemical weapons in Homs, Syria in order to frame both the Syrian and Russian governments. The plan involves using Britam's Ukrainian mercenaries and Soviet-era chemical weapon shells brought in from Libya's large, Al Qaeda-linked, Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG) controlled arsenals.

Saudi Arabia has secretly offered Russia a sweeping deal to control the global oil market and safeguard Russia’s gas contracts, if the Kremlin backs away from the Assad regime in Syria. ● The revelations come amid high tension in the Middle East, with US, British, and French warships poised for missile strikes against Syria, and Iran threatening to retaliate. The strategic jitters pushed Brent crude prices to a five-month high of $US112 a barrel. ‘‘We are only one incident away from a serious oil spike. The market is a lot tighter than people think,’’ said Chris Skrebowski, editor of Petroleum Review. Leaked transcripts of a behind closed doors meeting between Russia’s Vladimir Putin and Saudi Prince Bandar bin Sultan shed an extraordinary light on the hard-nosed Realpolitik of the two sides.

A new Reuters/Ipsos poll has finally found something that Americans like even less than Congress: the possibility of U.S. military intervention in Syria. Only 9 percent of respondents said that the Obama administration should intervene militarily in Syria; a RealClearPolitics poll average finds Congress has a 15 percent approval rating, making the country’s most hated political body almost twice as popular.

An Israeli rights group, B’Tselem, has published a report on the Israeli regime’s violations of the human rights of the Palestinians in the occupied territories, Press TV reports. ● The group said in an August 22 report that Palestinians, including children, have been subjected to torture during periods of interrogations or in Israeli jails. The group received testimonies from 64 Palestinian residents living in Bethlehem and al-Khalil (Hebron) in the occupied West Bank. Fifty-six of them, who were minors at the time of their interrogation, said they were subjected to threats, torture, and violence after being arrested.

“More than 95 percent of prisoners including children are suffering from torture. Israeli doesn’t differentiate between a child and an adult. We have even received testimonies of sexual abuse and threats against minors,” the Palestinian Authority’s Minister of Prisoners Affairs Kaldura Faris told Press TV. “They are often held for long hours, suffer sleep deprivation before they are tortured into confessing crimes they may have never committed…,” he added.

The far-reaching Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP) should be a force for improving health outcomes for the more than half a billion people in twelve countries affected by the pact, but instead negotiators are moving towards finalizing a deal that in fact would restrict access to affordable medicines and constrain governments’ ability to protect the health of their citizens, warned Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders (MSF).

“Despite more than 18 months of persistent opposition from its trading partners, the U.S. government has refused to back down from its demands for intellectual property (IP) rules designed to impede timely access to affordable generic medicines,” said Leena Menghaney, MSF Access Campaign Manager, who is attending the negotiations. “The U.S. is keen to block developing country governments from any attempt to control abusive patenting or limit drug patent terms to the internationally-agreed 20 years. These efforts are a repudiation of the U.S. government’s own prior commitments to balance commercial pharmaceutical interests with the public health interests of developing country populations.”

In this 19th round of negotiations, the U.S. may up the ante with a new demand for 12 years of “data exclusivity” protections for biologics, a class of products that includes many lifesaving drugs used to treat conditions such as diabetes, cancer and hepatitis C. Data exclusivity gives companies monopoly rights on drugs by restricting the use of clinical trial data by drug regulators when approving generic drugs or “biosimilar” versions of drugs and vaccines. Data exclusivity therefore creates a new patent-like barrier to accessing medicines and vaccines, even when these products are not protected by patents.

Belgrade Site Will Be Serbia’s Biggest Shopping Center. ● An Israeli architectural firm defended its involvement in the planned construction of a shopping mall on a former concentration camp for Jews in Serbia. “We cannot be suspected in being insensitive to anything relating to the Holocaust,” Ami Moore of the MYS firm in Tel Aviv said in a statement sent to JTA. Moore was responding to allegations that appeared earlier this month in an article by the Reuters news agency that his firm was pursuing unlicensed plans for building a shopping mall for Serbia’s Delta corporation on the premises of the Topovske Supe camp, where 6,000 Jews and 1,500 Roma were murdered during World War II.